by Adle Geras
The fridge was gigantic and white as ice, and it didn’t make a loud, humming noise like the fridge in the flat. Alison opened it and nearly let out a yelp of surprise. Someone had taken great care to stock up with every single thing anyone could possibly want. Eggs, bacon, sausages, fruit yoghurts in four different flavours, Greek yoghurt and cream. There were sealed packets of croissants and buns, packets of cold sliced meats, and jars of jam, marmalade, mayonnaise and mustard. There wasn’t any fruit or cheese, so they must be somewhere else, maybe in a larder. Granny used to keep things like that in the larder, so maybe Miss Fielding did as well.
She opened the packet of croissants and took out two. People in the company won’t be rushing to eat those, she thought as she put them on a special rack on top of the toaster to heat up. Too fattening by half. She took the butter out of the fridge and put it on the table and found a knife in one of the drawers. As soon as the croissants were ready, she sat down and began to eat.
That was when she noticed the cat. He was sleeping in a basket in the corner by the cooker, taking up every single bit of the available space. She got up from the table and approached him quietly, so as not to scare him away. ‘You are huge!’ she said, crouching down and stroking his back gently. He lifted his ginger head and gazed at her out of pale green eyes. Then he yawned an enormous pink yawn and rested his head on his front paws again. Alison whispered, ‘You’re a lovely cat. I wonder what your name is?’ Then she heard the sound of someone coming towards the kitchen. She froze, crouching on the floor beside the basket.
‘Oh, it’s you!’ said the person Alison had been told to call Miss Fielding. Hester Fielding, whose house this was. The famous dancer; even Claudia admired her. ‘You’re Alison, aren’t you? It was all a bit of a rush earlier on, but I think I caught your name. And you must please call me Hester. I can’t bear Miss Fielding. It makes me sound like a Victorian governess. Is anything the matter? Can I help you at all?’
Alison got to her feet in a scramble of confusion, embarrassment and shyness. She was desperate to say everything at once; to reassure Miss Fielding – Hester – that yes, everything was fine, really.
‘No, I’m okay. I just. I couldn’t sleep, you see, because I was so hungry, and I thought no one would … well, I thought everyone else would be asleep. And I would have cleared everything up. Only I couldn’t sleep, that’s all. And then I saw this cat. He’s so big!’
‘Siggy’s a bit of a monster, isn’t he? Don’t you worry, though. You finish your croissant. Midnight food always tastes wonderful, doesn’t it? I’m just going to make myself a cup of tea.’
Hester Fielding’s dressing-gown, Alison thought, looking at her as she set the kettle to boil, was grander than most people’s evening dresses. It was made of velvet, or perhaps it was velour, and it was exactly the colour of blackcurrant yoghurt. It swept the floor and was tied round the waist with a kind of sash. Alison noticed (because she always noticed people’s figures to see how much thinner than her they were) that Hester wasn’t any fatter than Claudia, even though she was older. Claudia had said she was fifty-three, but she didn’t look it. She dyes her hair, of course, she remembered hearing her mother remark to Hugo. And quite right too. I intend to be a redhead till my very last breath.
‘That’s a strange name, Siggy,’ she said, more for something to say than because she really thought it strange. ‘For a cat, I mean.’
Miss Fielding – Hester – turned and smiled at her, and Alison immediately felt happier. You couldn’t call her beautiful, she thought. Not in the way Mum’s beautiful, but it’s hard to stop looking at her, and when she smiles, her eyes shine and … Alison couldn’t express properly what it was exactly, but Hester had a kind of glow about her.
‘Siggy’s called after Siegfried. He’s the prince in Swan Lake, you know. We all thought he might be princely when he was a kitten, but now he’s so large and lumbering. Not a bit like a prince, at least not a ballet prince. They leap about much more than Siggy’s ever done.’
She poured the boiling water into the teapot and waited for a moment before making her cup of tea.
‘I hope you enjoy it here at Wychwood,’ she said. ‘You won’t be bored, will you?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Alison, although for days now she’d been moaning to Claudia that bored stiff would be her permanent state till school started. ‘No, I’m sure I’ll find lots to do. And I’m going to bed now. I know I’ll sleep well.’
‘I’m going to write a few letters I think,’ said Hester. ‘And then try to sleep. It’s going to be a busy day tomorrow.’
‘Yes,’ said Alison. ‘Good night.’
The croissants were delicious. She picked up the plate she’d been using and washed it at the sink. Which is more, she thought, than my mum will do when she has her breakfast. One of the more irritating things about Claudia was how messy she was. She hardly ever washed up properly either, which made Alison grind her teeth with fury. She always offered to do the dishes when she was at home. You’d think that might please a mother, but oh no. Claudia was forever telling people how domesticated Alison was, only she made it sound like an insult, as though only truly dull people ever bothered with things like housework. That sort of thing, her voice seemed to say, is not for artistic people like me.
‘Night night, Siggy!’ she whispered as she left the kitchen. Siggy was snoring in his basket and took no notice whatsoever.
*
Hester lay in bed and thought about Alison Drake. No one would have guessed, to look at her, that she was her mother’s daughter, so Mr Drake, whoever he was, must have been dark and stocky. A beautiful mother can be a problem, she thought, and wondered how much her ideas of her own identity, her desire to become a dancer, were bound up in her memories of Helen Prévert. By the time she came to live with the Wellicks, her memories of her mother had already begun to fade, and after that all she had was the photograph she’d brought with her. Hester had had to live up to a vision of beauty and grace caught forever behind glass in a silver frame. Alison, on the other hand, had Claudia in front of her every day and her looks would make almost anyone feel inadequate.
I think of Alison as a child, Hester thought, but she’s fourteen. That was how old I was when I started in the Charleroi Company and I considered myself quite grown-up and ready to start work.
1948
London was enormous. The cars, the crowds of people on the pavements, the huge, grey buildings – Hester looked out of the taxi window and recognised some of them from newsreels she’d seen. A thin rain was falling and street lamps made the puddles glitter and shine. Mr Cranley had been at King’s Cross station to meet her. She caught sight of him standing at the barrier as soon as she started walking up the platform, and waved to attract his attention. He smiled at her, and the nervousness she’d been feeling as the train steamed south (nervousness mixed with excitement, breathlessness at the idea of all the possibilities that lay ahead of her) evaporated at once. Everything was going to be all right.
They didn’t pass any theatres on the taxi ride from the station to Bayswater.
‘You’ll see them all soon enough,’ Mr Cranley said. ‘Especially the dear old Royalty, our theatre, in Craven Road. Royalty that’s rather fallen on hard times, is what I say, but it’s a splendid place all the same.’
Hester wanted to say that anywhere would be wonderful after the Wellicks, but didn’t quite dare. Mr Cranley peered at her in the half-light of the taxi’s interior.
‘I hope you’re not going to be homesick, are you?’
Hester laughed. ‘No, not a bit,’ she said. ‘Madame Olga is the one person I’ll miss and she says she’ll come down and see me dance when I’m ready. And I want to say thank you for … for everything. I’ll work really, really hard, I promise.’
‘I know that. I don’t take on girls who are frivolous about their dancing and Olga assured me of your determination. Mine is a small company, but a good one. Sadler’s Wells and the Festival Ballet often invi
te my principals to take on roles there, you know.’
He leaned forward as though what he was about to say was particularly important. Hester thought he looked exactly like someone who had just taken off a Father Christmas costume. His hair was white and his small beard much too neatly trimmed for the part, but his eyes were blue and bright and he had rosy cheeks.
‘I noticed something about you, Hester. Something that you may not even realise. Apart from Madame Olga, of course, you’re alone. She tells me that you’ve been alone for a very long time, ever since your father sent you to England and perhaps even longer, for I understand your mother died when you were very young, and who’s to tell what that does to a child, eh? We’ll never know.’
Hester frowned. What was Mr Cranley going to say? Was he right? The strangest sensation was creeping over her as he spoke, a sense of recognition. Alone. That was exactly what she had been until Madame Olga took an interest in her. All by herself in the world. Suddenly chilly, she rubbed one gloved hand against the other, and shivered. Mr Cranley went on speaking.
‘Your father, although he was polite and thank God not a philistine – he did understand about the ballet at least – didn’t strike me as a very warm person, I must say, and his wife – well, you’ll forgive me, but the milk of human kindness is in very short supply there, I fear.’
‘I’ve never met her. I’ve never been back to France since I left. My father visited the Wellicks three times while I was there.’
‘It makes what I’m going to say a little easier then. I hate to speak ill of a person’s relations, Hester, but you do seem to have drawn the most impoverished hand in that particular game, don’t you?’
Hester nodded. ‘But my grandmother was the best grandmother in the world. I remember her.’
‘That’s something I suppose, but of course she’s dead. I don’t mean to sound harsh and of course it’s not her fault that she couldn’t survive to love you, but I know that Madame Olga feels that you’re in need of … of someone. Olga’s an old friend of mine and she’s asked me to look after you, and I shall. I mean it. I want you to understand that you can tell me anything, ask me for any help or advice and I’ll do my very best to help.’
Hester hesitated. Was it too much? What was Mr Cranley really saying? Could Paula possibly have been right about his intentions? Or was he a father to all his dancers?
‘Thank you,’ she said at last, ‘but …’
Mr Cranley laughed. ‘I can read your thoughts as plainly as if they were written on your face. You have a very expressive face, which is a great gift for any performer. You’re thinking I’ll be wanting something in return, and God knows what ghastly ideas might be flitting through your mind! You can forget them. I require no more from you than hard work. I’m a sort of father-figure to the whole company, as they’ll doubtless tell you, but you – well, all the rest have perfectly decent parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles and whole coachloads of brothers and sisters. You, not to put too fine a point on it, have not.’
‘Thank you, Mr Cranley. I feel … I feel as though—’
‘Don’t bother to say it, Hester. It’s not important. And please call me Piers. They all do in the company. Here we are, then. This is it.’
Hester waited on the pavement with her suitcase beside her as Mr Cranley, Piers, paid the taxi driver. She glanced up at the lighted windows of 24 Moscow Road and realised that she hadn’t felt as comfortable as this since she’d been a little girl in France. I’ve been stiff, she thought, as though I’ve been braced against a storm of some kind. I could be myself at Madame Olga’s but that was the only place. But I feel different here.
‘You’ll be sharing with Dinah and Nell, I believe,’ Piers said. ‘Lively girls, both of them. Do you the world of good.’
He picked up the case and used the brass knocker in the shape of a lion to bang loudly on the door.
Number 24 Moscow Road looked very grand from the outside. There were three steps up to the front door and a porch with pillars around it. Inside, the hall was rather dark and very far from splendid. Hester found it a little disappointing. A table with a mirror above it took up half of its width. A lounge and a dining room opened off the hall. Later, she was to learn that the lounge was known as the Green Room, which was the name given to sitting rooms in theatres. There were bedrooms on three floors. The principals of the company were on the first and second floors, and the younger members shared rooms on the third floor and also in the attic. Hester found that she had been allocated a bed right at the top of the house, sharing with Dinah Rowland and Nell Osborne.
*
‘Welcolme to the Attic de Luxe!’ said Dinah, the first time she saw Hester. ‘It’s not much, but it’s home.’
Dinah was a tall, pale-skinned girl with a shock of golden hair; Nell was small and gingery, with freckles. They both looked older than she was, by a couple of years she guessed.
Hester put her suitcase down at the end of her bed and looked around. The floorboards were only partly covered, and the rugs were threadbare.
‘I can see you don’t think much of our decor and who can blame you?’ said Nell. She pointed at the rugs. ‘You have to use those as sort of stepping-stones to get from the door to your bed if you don’t want to risk splinters in your feet.’
Hester smiled. She unpacked her few belongings, marvelling at how little she possessed. Only her clothes and Antoinette, and the tortoiseshell box with Grandmère’s gold chain in it. She propped the doll on the bed, leaning against the pillow, and hoped that Dinah and Nell wouldn’t think she was babyish. Neither of them mentioned it.
*
Hester never told anyone how much she loved the Attic de Luxe. The others moaned about it but she settled in quickly, and soon it was as though she’d always lived there. For the first time in her life she had a tiny space that was entirely her own. She didn’t mind the shabbiness of the furnishings and soon grew used to always having tights hanging up over the bath in the chilly bathroom. It took them hours to dry and sometimes she had to put them on while they were still damp. Dinah advised her to squeeze them in a towel after she washed them.
‘Not very absorbent though, are they?’ said Hester.
‘Absorbent? This one’s transparent, more like a veil than a towel.’ Dinah waved one in front of herself and moved her hips suggestively, like a belly dancer. ‘I could be Salome, couldn’t I? The Dance of the Seven Towels.’
‘When I’m grown-up,’ Hester said, ‘my towels are going to be so fluffy they’ll be practically furry. And I’m going to have deep, deep carpets everywhere.’
‘Of course you will, ducky!’ said Dinah. ‘Now get dressed and let’s go to the Corner House.’
Lyons Corner House near Marble Arch was Hester’s favourite place in the whole of London. The rest of the city was a little disappointing. Never before had she seen a place which was so grey and gloomy. Everyone seemed to be dressed in brown or grey or black and every building was sooty and forbidding. Bomb damage was still visible in many places, and some houses had so much missing that you could look at them and see a wall with the remains of wallpaper still stuck to it, or a mantelpiece sticking out when all around it had vanished.
Dinah and Nell, Hester realised, were the first proper friends she’d ever had. They’d been kind to her from the beginning and Hester never felt at all homesick. There were times when she longed for Madame Olga; longed to walk through the village and through the gates of Wychwood and talk to her about this strange new life. Instead, she wrote to her twice a week, telling her everything – the way Piers’ classes differed from hers, the kindness of most of the others in the company to their youngest dancer, and the plans for future productions. And Madame Olga wrote back on blank postcards, in her complicated, spiky handwriting. She offered advice, sent kisses, and begged for more news, more detail. Every time she wrote, she signed the message in the same way: I think of you all the time and send you my blessings. Olga R.
During her e
arly months in London, Hester was nervous about being as good as the other dancers in the company. She kept up well during the daily lessons they all had to attend, but dancing was the real focus of her life and sometimes she worried that the other members of the company might not think she was good. For her part, Hester thought she had an accurate idea of her own talents. Sometimes she wondered whether perhaps she might be mistaken, but most of the time she recognised her own gift and was grateful for it. She didn’t say so to anyone, but she knew that she would succeed. She had the stamina for the work and the determination to fight, if she needed to, to be acknowledged. She understood that Piers thought highly of her, though he very rarely praised his dancers. It would have been easy for someone with less confidence in their own ability to feel discouraged.
Dinah and Nell showed her the best places to buy ballet shoes and tights and they introduced her to the delights of Lyons, which was exactly the sort of place Hester used to dream about when she thought of leaving Yorkshire. Lining up with Dinah and Nell and paying for whatever she’d eaten or drunk with her own money sent to her directly by her father made her feel grown-up.
The Royalty Theatre was a small island of colour in the middle of all the drabness. The seats in the stalls were blood-red and the curtain a particularly violent shade of crimson, but if you looked carefully, the plush was worn out in places, and there were holes in the curtain near the floor which had been patched and darned more than once.
‘Piers never spends enough money on the building,’ said Dinah, when she and Hester and Nell were sitting at their usual table in Lyons. ‘He’d rather get better costumes for the dancers, or take us all abroad on tour. He says no one minds about worn-out plush if the ballet’s good enough.’
She put out her long spoon and helped herself to a bit of Hester’s ice-cream. The girls always had the same thing, a triple scoop of ice-cream in three flavours – chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.
‘But they might stop coming to the theatre if the seats are too uncomfortable,’ said Nell.